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Under: design patents

For the past several years, SIIA has been trying to persuade Congress to change patent law to make it more difficult for non-practicing entities (e.g., trolls) to shake down technology businesses. What we don’t need is additional court decisions that make matters worse. To that end, SIIA, along with several leading tech companies, filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court urging it to reverse the Federal Circuit’s decision in Apple v. Samsung. (For those of you that are curious, the Federal Circuit decision is here).
Apple and Samsung have been battling in court for the past several years over design patents, which cover only non-functional aesthetic elements of a particular product. A person who uses that design without an authorization is an infringer, in the same way that someone who used Apple’s “slide to unlock” feature without a license would owe them a royalty. Where the two kinds of patents ...